7 years ago
Geoff Waddington
Kevin
I was fortunate to have Kevin as a friend for many years during our Naval Service, both at sea and at Royal Marines Poole; he was in a word a Gentleman, there was no bad side to Kevin only good.
We shared a love of motorcycles and a hate of authority and injustice.
An example of his character comes to mind from our time on HMS Glasgow in the Falklands conflict.
I was unfortunate to be in the engine room when the bomb passed through missing me by feet but leaving me drenched in diesel fuel, Kevin was the first man from outside to come down, ignoring the damage he came to me and asked if I was all right (typical Kevin) to which I replied “I feel like a wick”, and “there is a big hole in the starboard side” to which he replied well “there is another hole on the port side so whatever came in went out”.
I had to repeatedly, literally drag Kevin out of the freezing water when he was shaking too much to continue repairing the holes that day.
Next day timber repairs now in place we had support from HMS Hermes, some welders arrived with steel plate to effect a more permanent repair. Unfortunately they had a Naval Officer with them to co-ordinate their efforts (Ha).
Kevin and I were stood in front of the timber shoring at the repaired port side. The officer was dithering, unsure of whether to remove the temporary repair to allow welding to take place because the sea would come pouring back in. Kevin looked at me and winked, so I hit the shores with a sledge hammer and the sea came flooding in, he turned to the officer and said “well we will have to do something about it now eh”
Kevin was never one to blow his own trumpet and he would avoid pomp and circumstance whenever possible, basically he did not like a fuss.
He would never admit it but Kevin’s efforts during those days were instrumental in keeping the ship operational, perhaps another word to describe Kevin should be
‘The Reluctant Hero’
